The present invention relates to devices for supporting and displaying items thereon. More particularly, the present invention is directed to a display tray possessing moveable dividers for supporting, organizing and displaying greeting cards in a user-selected manner.
Conventional display shelving has been used for many years in the retail environment to present greeting cards and similar items to customers for purchase. One example of a prior art display shelf 10 is depicted in FIG. 1. The display shelf 10 is substantially formed of plastic material, but may also be formed of metal. The shelf 10 has a back wall 12, a bottom wall 14 and a front wall 16. Adjacent walls are generally perpendicular to one another and connected along adjoining edges thereof. The front wall 16 of the prior art display shelf 10 generally possesses a height sufficient to perform a couple of functions. First, the front wall 16 helps prevent the cards from sliding off the front edge of the bottom wall 14. Additionally, the front wall 16 acts to retain the cards in the pocket created by the wall such that cards placed therein cannot fall forward.
Despite the widespread use of conventional display shelving, it has a few drawbacks. For instance, with the display shelf 10, in order for the front wall 16 to retain the cards in the display shelf, the front wall must be of a substantial height to prevent cards from falling over the top of the front wall. Unfortunately, the front wall 16 also obstructs viewing of the front of the card located on the display shelf 10, such that the potential purchaser has to remove the card from the shelf in order to substantially fully view the front of the card. In connection with the display shelf 10, the prior art made use of divider clips 18 that would clip along the upper edge of the front wall 16 and could be slidably moved there along to accommodate cards of varying widths. The divider clips 18 were generally plastic in nature and adequately performed the function of separating the cards. However, the divider clips 18 could be easily removed by patrons and were often subject to breakage at the point where the clips 18 attached with the shelf front wall 16.